World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.2: Rage of the Firelands

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.2: Rage of the Firelands

Additional patch 4.2 content and support information can be found here.Notes for all World of Warcraft patches can be found here.

General

New Daily Quests: The Regrowth and Molten Front

A large assortment of all-new daily quests and rewards are now available in Hyjal, where players can help the Guardians of Hyjal push back the allies of Ragnaros and establish a forward operating base in the Firelands. In order to partake in the Regrowth and Molten Front daily quests, players must have at least completed up to and including the quest Aessina's Miracle. Once this quest has been completed, players should speak with Matoclaw in the Sanctuary of Malorne to take part in the Regrowth efforts.

Located within the Elemental Plane, the Firelands is an all-new 10- and 25-player raid featuring normal and Heroic difficulties! Battle-hardened veterans of the Horde and Alliance now have an opportunity to strike at Ragnaros the Firelord and his loyal servants by venturing into their domain via Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal.

Steadfast raiders have an opportunity to embark on a series of quests to create an all-new legendary caster staff. In order to begin the process of assembling the staff, players must first kill a Molten Lord in the Firelands, or have completed any of the achievements Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, or Throne of the Four Winds. Once any of these achievements have been unlocked, players can accept the quest A Legendary Engagement from Ziradormi in Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar, or Coridormi atop the Wizard's Sanctum in Stormwind (players who have already completed any of these achievements are immediately eligible for this quest). Players who become eligible for the quest series by killing a Molten Lord in the Firelands will automatically receive the quest Your Time Has Come, leading them to the start of the questline. The legendary item questline is only available to druids, mages, priests, shaman, and warlocks.

New User Interface Feature: Dungeon Journal

A host of dungeon information is now built into the user interface via the all-new Dungeon Journal. This feature can be accessed via a new button in the Navigation tray from anywhere in the world. Boss background story, encounter details, abilities, and loot can be viewed with the Dungeon Journal for all bosses which have been integrated into the new system (this includes bosses for all Cataclysm dungeons and raids). Additional dungeons are planned to be incorporated in future updates.

Recruit-A-Friend now awards bonus experience and free level grants to level 80, up from level 60.Players with a copy of the original World of Warcraft who had not yet upgraded to The Burning Crusade have had their accounts upgraded to access the content and features of The Burning Crusade expansion at no additional cost.

Achievements

Bear-ly Made It (new achievement): Save all four prisoners before they are sacrificed in Zul'Aman on Heroic difficulty.

Classes: General

All healing critical strikes now heal for 2 times a normal heal (+100%), up from 1.5 times a normal heal (+50%).

Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing. The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is complete. Fun has been unnerfed.

Buffs

All class abilities which place a buff on friendly targets no longer generate any threat. This goes for raid-wide buffs like and Power Word: Fortitude, as well as triggered effects such as or , and single-target buffs like and Hysteria. The exception is buffs which directly cause healing or damage, such as Thorns or Renew. Abilities such as these still generate normal threat.

Crowd Control

Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction.

Pets

The Aggressive pet stance has been removed and replaced with the Assist stance. This stance will cause the player's pet to attack the player's target. The pet will not change targets unless the master attacks a new target for a few seconds.

The Defensive pet stance will now only cause the player's pet to attack enemies which attack the pet or the master.

Spell Interrupts

When interrupted while casting a single-school spell such as Mind Flay or Frostbolt, players will now be able to cast dual-school spells such as Mind Spike (Frost and Shadow schools) or Flurry (Frost and Fire schools). However, being interrupted while casting a dual-school spell will still interrupt all respective schools as intended.

Stats

Death knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%.

Death knights, paladins, and warriors now receive 27% of their Strength bonuses as parry rating, up from 25%. This conversion still only applies to Strength above and beyond their base Strength.

General Class Bug Fixes

Players should no longer incorrectly receive a message stating they interrupted a spell cast when they did not.

Action bars will no longer briefly disappear when characters that have a stance bar enter a vehicle.

Charred Glyph has been redesigned. Rather than placing a 15% maximum health floor on Death Strike healing while in Frost or Unholy Presence, it causes the next Death Strike within 15 seconds after killing a foe that yields experience or Honor Points to heal for at least 20% of the death knight's maximum health (still requires Frost or Unholy Presence).

Death Knight Bug Fixes

The talent can now properly be triggered from off-hand attacks as well as main-hand attacks.

Druids now gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, down from 2. They continue to gain 2 attack power per point of Agility while in Cat Form or Bear Form. In addition, Cat Form's scaling rate from gear upgrades was slower than other classes, which was causing them to fall behind in damage with higher item levels. To counter the Strength change and improve scaling, the following changes have been made. All numbers cited are for level-85 druids.

Ferocious Bite damage has been increased by 15%. In addition, its base cost has been reduced to 25 energy and it can use up to 25 energy, for up to a 100% damage increase.

(Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 540% weapon damage, up from 460%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.

Rake initial damage on hit now deals the same damage as each periodic tick (and is treated the same for all combat calculations). Periodic damage now gains 14.7% of attack power per tick, up from 12.6%, and base damage per tick has been lowered from 557 to 56. There is a known issue with Rake's tooltip being incorrect from this change will be corrected in a future patch.

damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 950% weapon damage, up from 850%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 532.

Savage Roar now grants 80% increased damage to melee auto attacks, up from 50%. The Glyph of Savage Roar remains an unchanged bonus of 5% to that total.

Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 540% weapon damage, up from 450%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.

Entangling Roots and the equivalent spell triggered by Nature's Grasp no longer deal damage.Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid's maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.Starfire damage has been increased by approximately 23%. (Cat) now deals 600% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 670%.Solar Wrath damage has been increased by approximately 23%. Talent Specializations

Balance

's duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.

spell visual effect has been updated to be less visually intrusive and more aesthetic.

has been redesigned. When casting Moonfire, the druid gains Lunar Shower. Lunar Shower increases the direct damage done by Moonfire by 15/30/45%, and reduces the mana cost by 10/20/30%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 3 seconds. While under the effects of Lunar Shower, Moonfire generates 8 Solar Energy, and Sunfire generates 8 Lunar Energy. The amount of Lunar/Solar Energy gained does not change based on the number of points spent in the talent, or stacks of Lunar Shower. Those druids who wish to delay transition in or out of an Eclipse state should now cast the one of their two basic attacks which will not move the Eclipse bar (either Starfire or Wrath).

Bear damage abilities were scaling too fast with higher gear levels compared to other tanks, so the following balance changes have been made. All the numbers cited are for level 85 characters; numbers will be lower for lower-level characters.

base damage has been raised to 2950, up from 679. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 10.8%, down from 15%.

Maul base damage has been raised to 35, up from 8. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 19%, down from 26.4%.

Pulverize weapon damage percent has been decreased to 60%, down from 80%. Damage per Lacerate application has been increased to 1623, up from 361.

(Bear) weapon damage percent has been decreased to 190%, down from 260%. Bonus damage has been increased to 3306, down from 754.

base damage has been increased to 929, up from 215. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 12.3%, down from 17.1%.

Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1042, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 13.8%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 816, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 2.35%, down from 3.26%.

initial base damage has been increased to 3608, up from 2089. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 5.52%, down from 7.66%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 69, up from 16. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 0.369%, down from 0.512%.

damage reduction has been increased to 9/18%, up from 6/12%.

Restoration

Mastery: Harmony (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

Charred Glyph has been redesigned. It now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the caster for 1% of maximum health for each 10 energy used.

Charred Glyph now causes the druid to gain 10% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds when Innervate is used on a friendly target, in addition to Innervate's base effect.

Set Bonuses

The 4-piece Balance druid tier 11 PvE set bonus, Astral Alignment, now provides a total of 15% critical strike chance with 3 charges, decreasing by 5% per charge, instead of 99% decreasing by 33% per charge. This change was made because the set bonus proved so valuable it was not possible to upgrade out of the set into tier 12. To compensate, changes have been made to Starfire and Wrath (listed at the top of the druid class section).

The 2-piece Restoration druid tier 11 PvE set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.

Druid Bug Fixes

It is no longer possible in some encounters to use Wild Charge/Wild Charge when closer than its minimum range.

Multi-Shot damage has been reduced. It now deals 120% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 137%.

Traps now scale with hunter stats such as hit, expertise, spell penetration and attack power as intended.

Talent Specializations

Marksmanship

now grants additional critical strike chance against targets over 90% health, up from 80% health.

Survival

damage done has been increased by roughly 40%.

Pets

10 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.

(Pet Tenacity) has been redesigned. The pet runs at high speed toward a group member, reducing the damage done by the next melee or ranged attack made against them equal to 50% of the pet's total health.

When spreads Living Bomb, it will only be spread to two additional targets. The net effect is that if the mage's most recent Living Bomb target is the same as their Impact target, that target will no longer lose the Living Bomb effect. If Living Bomb is active on multiple targets when the Impact effect is cast, Living Bomb will remain active on the most recent Living Bomb target, and will be added to two other nearby targets.

Frost

and will cause diminishing returns on each other, in addition to the spells they normally share diminishing returns with.

now can be activated by any melee ability, not just single target melee abilities. This adds Hammer of the Righteous (the physical component) and Divine Storm to the list of abilities that can activate this seal. In addition, Seal of Righteousness procs can now be critical effects.

Talent Specializations

Holy

Beacon of Light can no longer be dispelled. In addition, it now transfers 100% of the heal from , but still 50% of the heal from other spells.

has been redesigned. It still reduces the mana cost of . However, it no longer has a chance on Holy Shock of making Exorcism free and instant. Instead, it has a 50/100% chance to prevent the Exorcism target from causing critical effects for the next 6 seconds. This effect can be dispelled.

Holy Shock mana cost has been decreased to 7% of base mana, down from 8%.

(Mastery) has been adjusted slightly so that if a paladin refreshes an existing copy of his or her own Illuminated Healing on a target, the new absorption amount will be added into the old absorption amount and the duration will be reset. The total absorption created can never exceed 1/3 of the casting paladin's health.

Infusion of Light can now lower the cast time of Flash of Light by 0.75/1.5 seconds, in addition to Holy Light and Divine Light. In addition, the old Denounce spell overlay effect has been transferred to Infusion of Light since Denounce is no longer a proc.

Speed of Light now increases movement speed when or Divine Protection are cast. In addition, this talent now reduces the cooldown of Holy Radiance by 13/26/40 seconds, up from 10/20/30.

has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin's shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.

now procs on attempt rather than on strike, which means judgements that miss can still grant mana. This is to help ensure Protection paladins are not starved for mana if they aren't capped on hit rating.

Retribution

now increases Inquisition duration by 66/133/200%, up from 50/100/150%.

The talent now makes hit an unlimited number of melee targets, instead of only 2 additional targets.

Selfless Healer can no longer be dispelled and cannot be stolen via Spellsteal; and, in addition to its current effects, it lowers the cooldown of by 5/10 seconds.

Improved Water Shield has been redesigned and renamed Resurgence. When is active, Resurgence causes critical direct heals to restore mana (Resurgence rank 2 is roughly equal to 150% of the old Improved Water Shield value when a Healing Wave or Greater Healing Wave critically hits, and scaled down accordingly for faster or multi-target spells).

The 4-piece Elemental shaman PvP set bonus (Gladiator's Thunderfist set) has been redesigned. It now causes to generate an extra charge, rather than consuming one, when it is triggered by receiving damage, up to a maximum of 3 (9 with the Rolling Thunder talent).

It is no longer possible in some encounters to use Charge when closer than its minimum range.

Currency

Conquest & Honor Points

All existing Conquest Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Honor Points. All Honor Points exceeding the 4,000 point cap have been converted into gold at a rate of 35 silver per point and mailed to characters.

The minimum cap on Conquest Points earned per week from Arenas is now 1500 1350 at 1500 or less Battleground Arena rating. The maximum cap remains is now 3000 2700 at 3000 or more Battleground Arena rating. The cap continues to scale non-linearly between those two points. For comparison, during season 9 the cap ranged between 1343 and 3000.

The game now separately tracks different Conquest Point caps for Battlegrounds and Arenas. The cap for Arena rating will always be 2/3 of the cap for Rated Battleground rating at any given Arena rating. Battleground ratings receive a bonus of 22.2% to the cap they generate, meaning the cap from Battleground rating now ranges between 1650 and 3300. Players may earn a total number of Conquest Points per week equal to the higher of these two caps, but once players have reached the cap for either Arenas or Battlegrounds, they can no longer earn Conquest Points from that source. Conquest Points from Battleground holidays only count toward the total Conquest Point cap.

Example: During the first week of Season 10 everyone starts with a rating below 1500. Therefore, the cap from Rated Battlegrounds will be 1500 1650 and the cap from Arena rating will be 1000 1350. In the first week, the character wins enough Arena matches to reach the 1000 1350 point cap. After that point, Arena wins will no longer grant Conquest points for the week. However, the character can still earn up to 500 300 additional points, but can only earn those points from either Rated Battlegrounds, or from the Conquest Point bonus for holiday and/or daily random Battlegrounds. The following week the cap will be recalculated based on the character's ratings, and it is possible Arena rating could now generate the higher cap. The second week, the character's cap from Arena rating is 1600 1800, and the cap from Rated Battlegrounds is 1500 1650. The character has a total cap of 1600 1800 Conquest points for the week. Up to 1500 1650 points can be earned from Rated Battlegrounds, but the last 100 150 must come from a different source.

Valor & Justice Points

The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.

The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.

The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.

The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 120 in 10-player mode, and 140 in 25-player mode.

The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 120 in 10-player mode, and 140 in 25-player mode.

Dungeons & Raids

Players can select PvE, PvP, specialization, and group size. Each Raid Profile type will then automatically setup going forward.

This feature is available for 5-player content as well when Use Raid-Style Party Frames is selected in the Interface options.

Raid Profiles can list groups horizontally as well as vertically.

A Raid button has been added to the Navigation tray which will bring players straight to the Raid window in the Social pane.

Baradin Hold

Occu'thar has broken free from his cage and presents an all-new boss challenge to players in 10- and 25-player arrangements who control Tol Barad. This boss will be available with the start of Season 10, one week after the release of patch 4.2.

Dungeon & Raid Bug Fixes

The achievement Aberrant Behavior should no longer incorrectly reset its kill tracking during the Maloriak encounter in Blackwing Descent.

Anshal's Soothing Breeze should no longer cause combat pets to behave erratically in Throne of the Four Winds.

Raid Marker icons are now visible in all phases of boss encounters.

Guilds of level 3 or above may no longer be disbanded. Guild leaders wishing to leave a guild will need to promote another member to Guild Master first.

Guild Finder

Long comments will now work and not be cut off in the display.

The daily guild experience cap has been increased by 25%. The weekly guild reputation cap has been increased by 25%. The guild experience cap is now removed at level 20, down from level 23. The Reins of the Dark Phoenix, purchased from the Guild Vendor, has had its art improved. It's now less transparent and indisputably more awesome.

Items

If a player wins a Need roll under the Need Before Greed system on a Bind on Equip item, the item will become Soulbound to that player. The item will remain unbound if won via a Greed roll.

Applicable tier 11 items now cost Justice Points.

Darkmoon Card: Hurricane damage done when triggered has been increased by 40%, however, it can no longer deal critical strikes and no longer receives any modifiers to its damage from the equipping player.

The Keyring bag slot has been removed to make room in the user interface for new features.

Keys which no longer serve a purpose in the game will be removed from player inventories. Compensation for the keys will be automatically provided in the form of each key's vendor sell price in gold.

Keys which are obsolete quest items will be removed from player inventories.

Keys which may still be of use to players will be transferred to regular inventory space. If a player's bags are full, these keys will sit in a backlogged inventory until sufficient space is made available. Once space is opened, the keys will appear in regular inventory upon the player logging out or switching zones.

PvP Items & Rewards

Applicable Season 9 items now cost Honor Points.

Gladiator Weapons

Season 10 Conquest Point weapons will only be purchasable once a required minimum sum of has been reached during the current season. For example, Ruthless Gladiator's Pike costs 3400 Conquest Points to purchase. However, players must first earn a total of 11650 Conquest Points during Season 10 before they are able to purchase it.

Season 9 Honor Point weapons will only be purchasable once a required minimum sum of has been reached during the current season. For example, Vicious Gladiator's Pike costs 3400 Honor Points to purchase. However, players must first earn a total of 18500 Honor Points during Season 10 before they are able to purchase it.

Once the minimum sum of points required to purchase weapons is reached, all available weapons can be purchased for their listed costs. The point requirement is not reset once a purchase is made.

Weapon tooltips from the vendor will let players know how many more Conquest or Honor Points must be earned in the current season before the item can be purchased.

Rated Battleground Rewards

New PvP ground mounts, the Horn of the Vicious War Wolf (Horde) and Reins of the Vicious War Steed (Alliance), will be awarded to players for completing achievements to win 75, 150, and 300 Rated Battlegrounds respectively, rather than for being in the top .5% of the ladder at the end of each season as with Arenas. This award system is to better compliment the spirit of Battlegrounds. One account-bound mount will be awarded for each achievement unlocked, allowing players who obtain 150 and 300 Rated Battleground wins to earn this mount a second and third time. The additional mounts earned can then be sent to alt characters, given they're account-bound. These mounts are awarded as soon as an associated achievement is unlocked and do not correspond with end-of-season rewards.

Set Bonuses

The 2-piece resilience bonus from Cataclysm PvP sets no longer stacks. If a player wears 2 pieces each from 2 different Cataclysm sets, the player will only receive the 400 resilience rating bonus once. This change does not apply to PvP sets from prior expansions.

Professions

D.E.H.T.A. has recently placed a great number of critters under their protection, especially rabbits and squirrels. Because of this, Flintlocke's Woodchucker has been re-fitted to use wild chickens until an "agreement" can be reached.

Players can no longer skin corpses already being actively skinned or looted by other players.

PvP

Arenas

The individual Matchmaking Rating column has been removed from the Arena scoreboard.

The Ring of Valor has been added to the Arena rotation once again. Players no longer start the match on elevators at the center of the map. They now begin the match in starting rooms on opposite sides of the Arena.

Battlegrounds

The individual Matchmaking Rating column has been removed from the Rated Battleground scoreboard and replaced with a team Matchmaking Rating.

Eye of the Storm has been added into the rotation as a 10-man Rated Battleground. The tug-of-war style capture points have been replaced with Arathi Basin style capture points to better support 10v10 competition. This change applies only to Rated Battlegrounds. Eye of the Storm is otherwise still a 15-player Battleground with tug-of-war style capture points.

Warsong Gulch has been added back into the Rated Battleground rotation.

War Games

Many improvements have been made to the War Games interface. It now has its own panel for ease of use and raid/group leaders are the only ones who can challenge another group to War Games.

Quests & Creatures

There are no longer oddities in the critical strike and dodge chance of lower-level creatures.

Creatures will now display smooth energy regeneration for players

Races

All character races now have a /roar sound.

User Interface

The Interface Options screens have changed size to match the Video and Audio screens. This allows for a larger Compact Unit Frames Profiles panel.

Addons will no longer be able to intelligently swap items by working with the built-in Equipment Manager.

The order in which characters are listed at the Character Selection screen can now be rearranged and saved.

The cast bar can now be moved to display below the Character frame.

Character talent specializations can now be viewed on mouseover of the Battlegrounds Scoreboard.

There is now a Dismiss Pet option on unit frames.

The durability character display will now show items as yellow when they are below 20% durability, instead of when items have 5 durability or less.

The Macros window and Spellbook can now both be open at the same time to allow for more intuitive macro creation. In addition, the Macros window has a Save/Cancel button.

It is now easier to change the language of the game client to any language available in the region.

A target or focus target can be selected within the mini-map tracking (does not include enemy players).

Vendors now display currency types they use.

Technical

The Blizzard Launcher now utilizes Universal Plug and Play for port configuration. If your router supports UPnP it will automatically open the ports that it requires and your downloads will be unrestricted.